Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Returns are not a side process. They are where margin, fraud, inventory, and sustainability often collide.
I’m joined by Terry Boyle, CEO of Trove, whose team builds software for brands managing returns and resale. The problem is painfully practical: most companies have engineered forward logistics to within an inch of its life, while reverse logistics still absorbs cost, hides product signals, and leaves supply chain leaders guessing where value is leaking after the sale.
That matters now because return rates are rising with e-commerce, labour remains tight, fraud is harder to ignore, and sustainability budgets are under sharper commercial scrutiny. Terry makes the case that reverse logistics can no longer sit in the operational shadows. If a returned item can move back to stock, resale, repair, off-price, or recycling, the decision has to happen quickly, consistently, and with data good enough to trust. Otherwise, margin evaporates. Very efficiently. Humanity’s gift to spreadsheets continues.
What changed my thinking was the scale of the opportunity. Terry argues there may be four to five points of EBITDA sitting inside reverse logistics. I also came away thinking differently about customer-reported returns data, which can be unreliable because customers are often optimising for acceptance, not accuracy. That matters for product design, supplier decisions, quality control, and inventory flow. The sustainability piece is equally blunt: circularity is more likely to scale when it is sold as better inventory economics rather than moral virtue alone.
Kismet: the fraud discussion includes the all-too-real example of “boxes of rocks” arriving back at fulfilment centres. Not elegant. Extremely clarifying.
This is for supply chain, logistics, procurement, operations, finance, and sustainability leaders who need cleaner data, tighter controls, and better margin recovery from returns.
If you’re dealing with this on the ground, I’d like to hear how you’re handling it.
🔗 Resilient Supply Chain Podcast: resilientsupplychainpodcast.com
✅ Subscribe or follow for weekly conversations on supply chain resilience, operational risk, sustainability, data, and decision-making.
⏱️ Chapters / timestamps below:
00:00 – The hidden EBITDA leak in reverse logistics
01:18 – When returns software becomes a resilience lever
03:17 – Where retail margin disappears after the sale
06:45 – Why high return rates hit logistics cost
08:22 – Turning returns from cost centre to margin recovery
11:12 – Fraud, rocks, and refund risk
14:39 – Why returns data fails product teams
18:29 – The manual chaos behind reverse logistics
21:19 – Where AI helps, and where it does not
26:00 – Sustainability only scales when the economics work
29:08 – Climate becomes a supply chain cost issue
33:22 – Free returns, resale, and customer behaviour
Returns are not a side process. They are where margin, fraud, inventory, and sustainability often collide.
I’m joined by Terry Boyle, CEO of Trove, whose team builds software for brands managing returns and resale. The problem is painfully practical: most companies have engineered forward logistics to within an inch of its life, while reverse logistics still absorbs cost, hides product signals, and leaves supply chain leaders guessing where value is leaking after the sale.
That matters now because return rates are rising with e-commerce, labour remains tight, fraud is harder to ignore, and sustainability budgets are under sharper commercial scrutiny. Terry makes the case that reverse logistics can no longer sit in the operational shadows. If a returned item can move back to stock, resale, repair, off-price, or recycling, the decision has to happen quickly, consistently, and with data good enough to trust. Otherwise, margin evaporates. Very efficiently. Humanity’s gift to spreadsheets continues.
What changed my thinking was the scale of the opportunity. Terry argues there may be four to five points of EBITDA sitting inside reverse logistics. I also came away thinking differently about customer-reported returns data, which can be unreliable because customers are often optimising for acceptance, not accuracy. That matters for product design, supplier decisions, quality control, and inventory flow. The sustainability piece is equally blunt: circularity is more likely to scale when it is sold as better inventory economics rather than moral virtue alone.
Kismet: the fraud discussion includes the all-too-real example of “boxes of rocks” arriving back at fulfilment centres. Not elegant. Extremely clarifying.
This is for supply chain, logistics, procurement, operations, finance, and sustainability leaders who need cleaner data, tighter controls, and better margin recovery from returns.
If you’re dealing with this on the ground, I’d like to hear how you’re handling it.
🔗 Resilient Supply Chain Podcast: resilientsupplychainpodcast.com
✅ Subscribe or follow for weekly conversations on supply chain resilience, operational risk, sustainability, data, and decision-making.
⏱️ Chapters / timestamps below:
00:00 – The hidden EBITDA leak in reverse logistics
01:18 – When returns software becomes a resilience lever
03:17 – Where retail margin disappears after the sale
06:45 – Why high return rates hit logistics cost
08:22 – Turning returns from cost centre to margin recovery
11:12 – Fraud, rocks, and refund risk
14:39 – Why returns data fails product teams
18:29 – The manual chaos behind reverse logistics
21:19 – Where AI helps, and where it does not
26:00 – Sustainability only scales when the economics work
29:08 – Climate becomes a supply chain cost issue
33:22 – Free returns, resale, and customer behaviour
